Sunday, June 14, 2009

Sometimes Randall Munroe draws comics and I go "ewwww, that's creepy, that makes me feel gross." And I write that on the blog and invariably, some people go "what are you talking about, there's nothing creepy about that, you just use that word to describe everything, lame"

Can we all please agree that this comic is fucking creepy? This is stalking, what is happening here. Nothing else. That's creepy, all the time. Ok? What Mr. Hat is doing is following where this person is at all times (yes, she has chosen to in some cases broadcast where she is, but Mr. Hat's exposition makes it clear that she does not intend for to be followed in this case).

Then there is the "Megan" question - as you all know, Randall has this habit of always having his weird breakup comics (and, as in this case, a few others) feature a girl named Megan, and there is Much Debate over how seriously to take this - whether it is just a stock name and Randall just likes using it all the time, or if he actually has had some serious unresovled drama featuring a Megan. Obviously, if it is the later, then that ups the creepiness in all these comics exponentially. It also means that Randy is really just weird, and not very careful at all. That's why I tend to fall on the "It's just a name" side of the deabte. But who knows? As he uses it more, it makes me feel a little creepier even if it's just a name.

Oh my goodness so far into a post and I have yet to get mad at the humor! The humor is bad. The joke is bad. First off, it's another Noodle Incident joke - where he doesn't actually tell you a funny situation, he just gives you some Guarunteed Humorous Material and makes you imagine what funny thing happened - in this case, he gives you Sex + Electronics/Tools -> ? -> Injury and you get to figure out what ? is. It's perfect - because if you can't come up with something funny, it's your fault for having a crappy imagination, and if you can, well, give Randy credit because he inspired it with his ideas. FUCKER.

Anyway, whatever you thought of for the hilarious situation, it wasn't that good. It just relies on the usual middle school awkwardness about sex that makes it always funny no matter what. Add the usual middle school humor about people getting hurt, and you have yourself a joke that will not fail to entertain 14 year olds, time after time after time, with no extra work required! From a standpoint that is only a little more advanced, it just seems lazy. And it is.

With the alt-text ("The G1, especially with the new Android upgrade, is way better than I originally thought.") he just isn't trying anymore. That's OK randall. Your jokes are bad when you write them, so you might as well stop writing jokes at all and just skip to basic technology reviews.

XKCD-Obsessed-With-Sex count: 3 out of the last 5! And one of the two that didn't was about uterus-based-humor.

Update: god fucking damn it I promised to say something nice about each comic and this time I didn't even remember. I found something else I disliked though! Two things actually. One was the excellent point made by Commenter Raekwon the Deaf about how when Mr. Hat says "when they're doing something discreetly" it really does telegraph that the joke will be something awkwardly sexual and embarrassing. That's basically all the word "discreet" is used for.

And then what pissed me off (and this is one of those little things) is the names of the stores: "Eastview Adult Toy Store" and "Lakeview Sex Toy Shop" are made from the same formula. Can't even think of a clever sex shop name? Come on. (hey! that's pracically a name right there). And then the hardware stores are "blue collar name + 's + what sort of thing we sell".

Oh right I was here to say something nice. Ah crap. I really can't think of anything. I will try harder next time (though I may fail again, 597 sucks ass too)

It is odd that there are two sexy-thing-with-electronics-ruined-by-burning comics in a row. But whatever. It is also odd to bring in the hatted fellow for something so relatively mundane, but also whatever. Neither of these things are bad, just strange.

If you have the right sense of humor, the punchline isn't bad. I don't happen to have that sense of humor, but obviously that isn't Randall's fault.

All that aside, there is one glaring failure in this one. The setup -allows- for the punchline, but doesn't actually relate to it. The whole comic could be just the second panel, and given the caption "Megan's Day". The first panel just seems to be Randall showing off a nerdy thing that he happens to know. Again. But it is less flagrant showing off than other situations.

How could this comic improve, you may ask? Rather, how could the list of daily locations actually tie in to being watched? Easily. Make Megan visit conveniently named locations to spell out a message. Perhaps the equivalent of "I know you are watching me." Granted, it would be hard to find location names to spell out such a message, but if it can't be done, then the setup should not exist at all.

this would have been much funnier (ie not as shitty as it is now) if he hadn't given away the joke in the first line.

"but haven't learned the habit of turning it off when they're doing something discreetly." tells us exactly what the punch-line will be: Megan does something crazy sexual and whatnot!

if it had just been"I made an app to track people!", then we are at least given the option of being surprised by the crazy goings-on of Megan.

I guess the joke is really "you wouldn't expect a visit to the hardware store to be kinky!", but if that's the case, it only means randy wasted an opportunity to pack even more precious humor nuggets into the comic.

i really think many of the problems with xkcd stem from randall's lack of literary sensibility (as has been pointed out before). he simply doesn't know how to transmit his ideas. they may be slightly clever, but he's an engineer, not a writer, so all his prose and storyboarding come out horribly stilted.

This joke was already done. But it was already explained. In the Moral Orel Season 3 episode "Numb" it shows Orel's mother, Bloberta sexually injuring herself with a jackhammer while Orel and Clay were at their hunting trip. In truth, it wasn't so much a joke as it was sad. Which is what this comic was. But not in the meaningful way that leads to character development.

What annoys me most about this comic is that he uses "people are using" to project something he's used as being more popular than it really is. Not all stores will be labeled like that, either, if Google Latitude uses Google Earth data; the user probably had to take the trouble to map buildings to place names using Street View.

The latest comic has me guessing he's getting his material from bash.org or something.

Have you thought about commenting on how even the forumites didn't know that there was an app like this? I sure didn't, and it negated the humor outright. I literally had to figure out what it was to get the joke.

The presence of the other person (probably "Robert") in the little table just opens up more questions. I would imagine it's just someone unrelated to Megan. But then I noticed that all of his activity is occurring while Megan is out buying sex toys. And, I dunno, maybe it's nothing, or maybe there was some larger idea here (a husband or something?) that Randall just failed to communicate.

"Constant novelty saps my initiative." is terrible dialogue, definitely. I had to read it twice to figure out what it meant ("Novelty saps? Like.. maple syrup with glitter?") and it just comes across as incredibly awkward. I know people talk like that, especially on the internet, because they feel it makes them sound like intellectuals, but that doesn't mean it's not terrible writing.

Interestingly, it's not in the same vein as "Do me without a condom" or "Ugh, stupid uterus", because it's more like somebody trying to talk like a pseudo-intellectual/HAL 9000, rather than straight out blunt. This means that we may be able to start dividing Randall's dialogue in separate categories soon. Exciting!

Thanks for putting all that in caps, I almost didn't see your comment.

"ASK FOR RANDALL TO GET AN EDITOR"Fair enough.

"PUT MORE EFFORT INTO THE ARTWORK"Why does anyone complain about this? It is a stylistic choice he made, and I would imagine a lot of people like it. Even if no one does, I doubt he would change it as it would then cease to be xkcd, really.

At 9:37 Anonymous:It's not the stick figures, I personally can buy that as a style since it's worked, I guess. Randy's lazy everywhere else. Considering his last background was in comic 592, and that was 6 comics ago. Even then, the best there was was a corner in two panels and a small glimpse out the door of actual background. Apart from that, these stick figures have been sitting in a blank, expressionless void, as has Randy's humor. Seriously, even a horizon line would improve his comic.

Ken has it spot on. The joke, as much as it exists, is just the second panel. Once it's been stripped down to just the second panel, it's just xkcd 236 with a hardware store instead of a supermarket and the joke being played on us instead of us being in on the joke.

Maybe something like:11:00 AM - Home12:30 PM - Eastview Adult Toy Store1:00 PM - Chipotle2:00 PM - Laketown Sex Toy Shop2:30 PM - Fry's Electronics3:00 PM - Ed's Powertool Emporium3:30 PM - Pharmacy4:00 PM - Behind youOr, add a third panel where Megan enters innocently. Or, remove the name Megan and add a third panel (or just replace the second panel) with him saying, "Um, I can explain...". These can also justify the presence of the first panel in that they set up the characters. Basically, turn it on the characters and let us laugh at their wily shenanigans.

Or, at least have it interplay with Robert's day:Robert:11:00 AM - Home2:00 PM - Pharmacy2:30 PM - Home3:00 PM - Chiropractor4:00 PM - Home4:10 PM - Hospital Burn WardPossibly replacing some of the home's with the other's name or with a common address, or we can just assume they're living/rooming together.

One thing that really jumps out at me again after reading it is how he clearly does ZERO editing, or even re-reading of his strips. Which is why the dialogue is so stilted and unnecessary. You can kind of imagine his thought/writing process:

-Funny idea-Write funny idea as dialogue "We're in a window..."-"Draw" idea, because, you know, it's like a comic or whatever, maybe add some details

This might fly when you're ideas are good enough the bad writing is overlooked, or (more rarely) that the ideas are so good that they take up enough space just getting the idea out the first time. So I can imagine that in the early days of XKCD, that was fine, so no one ever told him how real writers work. But those days are long gone.

But if he'd just edit his goddamn comic like a PROFESSIONAL (which he is), he could take it from truly bad comic to just a generic crappy comic. Even if this is the best idea he could come up with in the 48 hours he had since the previous one, he should just edit out the stupid dialogue, have his crappy chart with a title like, "Why Google Latitude is a Bad Idea."

Of course, if you applied this to all of xkcd, Mr. Hat (or any other character) would have all of ten appearances. And all this inevitably leads to "Randall should get a blog/twitter".

I would just like to point out that "Fry's Electronics" is a real chain of stores. It's hardly the artist's fault that it appears formulaic. I don't know about the other one,(I doubt it's real, given the specificity) but still it's hardly a trend with only one valid data point.

You have point with the sex shops, though.

As for creepiness-- yeah, okay, this one's creepy. But that's the point. It's knowingly creepy, featuring a character long since established to be sadistic and obsessive. It's creepy in a "that character is creepy" way, not creepy in a "the author who produced this comic is creepy" way.

@Evilagram: doing any such thing would result in said person being immediately shot down by several dozen forum members who believe there is nothing wrong with xkcd and that the webcomic is the very representation of perfection.

Randall might be able to take critisicm, but since he never addresses any of it we may never know.

Randy seems like the type who doesn't take criticism very well, but not in a very public way. When John Allison posted snarky things about XKCD he just took down the link. I guess it's possible he also sent a sad email but I think he generally avoids that phase.

Yes, the stick figures are a stylistic choice, but that doesn't mean that he can't work on improving the other things that aren't stick figures, not to mention the poses and the flow of the stick figures themselves. That, and at the beginning of the comic he posted some really cool landscapes, and at least a few of his comics have included some nice stuff like that. Where did that go? Let's push to bring that kind of stuff back.

As for raiding the xkcd forums, it's wholly possible. We have a bunch of readers here, we can stand up to a few forumites. If they're really as delusional and stupid as everyone here thinks, then we can take 'em easy.

As for Randal ignoring criticism to protect his precious ego: Murder 'em. I'm quite the infamous art critic in some parts of the internet, and I cannot allow anyone to simply hide like that. Make him or break him, Randal needs to feel the heat.

"As for raiding the xkcd forums, it's wholly possible. We have a bunch of readers here, we can stand up to a few forumites. If they're really as delusional and stupid as everyone here thinks, then we can take 'em easy."

Wouldn't that require me making an account? It seems like a lot of effort just to get banned by the xkcd blowjob brigade.

First, you can see that the "Fernie Canto" that occasionally posts here in action, username SirMustapha. He seems more cordial here.

Second, it's annoying that Carl's posts are taken to be the be all and end all of xkcdsucks. Granted he's the benefactor of this blog, and his posts are on the frontpage, but I think xkcdsucks is more about the community and posts. People bring up many good points in the comments. That, and I don't find myself agreeing with all of Carl's points, and I generally hate every new xkcd.

Third, 'Belial' seems like a colossal tool. I only say this because it makes me question Randall's involvement on the forum. Does he post in it? Does he have a say in how it's run? Did he appoint this guy? Are they buddies? Though it's probably no coincidence that the biggest and loudest sycophant there seems to be in charge.

And John, I've been told that Belial is a good real-life buddy of Randall (and there I thought he had none), which is why he can give Randall's opinion in some things. It's quite clear that he's a douche, though. Yes, me calling someone a douche. Speaks volumes about their level of doucheyness, doesn't it?

Dude, this is the Internet. If anyone had the moral high ground, they wouldn't be here. You know, they'd be somewhere on the moral high ground, looking down at anyone who thought "hmm. this internet thing looks interesting. but randall is clearly unfunny/carl is clearly wrong/poore is clearly drunk! i must intervene!" and pointing. And laughing. The pointing! The laughing! The laughing and pointing and pointing and laughing, and pointing and laughing and pointing and laughing... I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

@Rehoboam: Surely someone who is a douche would be more likely to find other people a douche?

Hahahahaha, oh man, bottom of the barrel guys! Randall's designated ball-muncher finds our 'flailing' and 'idiocy' endearingly entertaining. This is the guy who's closest thing to being funny and/or witty was banning people on the forum, this leading one of them to miss a meeting with another forum creature (although to be royally fucking honest if your only method of contact prior to meeting in real life is forum PMs then you're pretty fucking stupid). One could argue that people posting in that thread were retards (verdict: yep, they were), but the existence of such a thread is equally retarded. But hey, when you're a "humanities type" I guess that's what counts as being super-awesome. And, of course, this overreaction is just a whiny little kid crying into their pillow.

So basically I end this on the note that both of them are idiots, but Belial has gotten it into his head that being a mod on the xkcd forums means he's funny/intelligent by proxy. He is a nobody on the internet just like the vast majority of people, myself included. I cannot for a second fathom that this will matter much though, as someone with an ego like his will just make some crappy retort from the safety of the forums if he even chooses to acknowledge anything I said. Obviously I'm 'flailing' to insult him in an 'idiotic' manner or something.

Considering how elitist Randy is supposed to be about people not smart enough for him, I wonder why he's buddies with Belial. Must be a brilliant brown-noser, I guess...

Also, for the record, I never thought sudo make me a sandwich was funny. I know what the sudo command does, but a guy responding to a unix command like he's a unix machine alone isn't funny enough, to me. It either needs a word joke or some additional thing that would provide some humorous reason for the guy to respond to unix commands.

CAPTCHA: Sculporr. If I ever make a superhero movie, Sculporr will be the main villain.

Also, raiding and trolling are two different things. I imagine a "raid" from xkcd fans would be them trying to convert us with bullshit arguments like they always do, and frankly I would love to see some of Randall's sycophants post their diatribes and be all butthurt. Just like the good old YWIBAYSFB days...

Many XKCD fanboys, much like Randy, thrive on pretending that they are morally superior, mocking those who hate them with what they imagine are Logical and Intellectual arguments that Prove that we are Inferior, Irrefutably. They rely desperately on acting as if they have the moral and intellectual high ground and are not emotionally affected by the attacks--something they couldn't do if they raided here, unless they are very skilled at self-deception. Even then, they end up looking pretty silly.

The ones that come tend to do so alone or in pairs, and they quickly find themselves overwhelmed, bereft of support.

It's more that they're up against people who are actually intelligent, as opposed to the xkcd psuedo-intellectual "hey guys I knew what this comic was referencing without needing to Google it can we be friends now please" morons.

ok does anyone know where this "Belial" fellow got that quote from Randall about being "pretty ok" with this blog? I assume he was referring to this blog, possibly it is just "criticism in general" and I am being full of myself again. In any case - if anyone knows a place Randy has mentioned this blog can you link me to it? this is important because I happen to know for sure that randall is emphatically not ok with this blog.

I -think- Belial let it slip a couple of times that he occasionally speaks with Randall in person. Because he's the kind of person that would like other people to know that he speaks to people like Randall in person. So he might have heard it from him there. And since Randall presumably doesn't read or post in the forums, he won't call Belial out on it if it's bullshit.

Also, regarding 'remember the ass turds': I like how much influence on this blog I already have. OMG WHAT IF I'M RANDALL IN DISGUISE!

perhaps whenever a troll becomes apparent and one of us is arguing with said troll, unaware in the heat of the moment that troll is a troll, another one of us can put a halt to the fight with "guys. Remember the ass turds."

But then it is possible that we will get bombarded with questions like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT CUDDLEFISH AND ASS TURDS WHAAAAAAT

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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